


Way of the Heavenly Fist - Part 4: Tainted Red

by Shivaree76



Series: Way of the Heavenly Fist [4]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Bruises, Cameos, Dominance, F/F, Femdom, Fighting, Martial Arts, Masturbation, Near Death, Submission, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 07:28:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14232312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shivaree76/pseuds/Shivaree76
Summary: New city. New identity. Same old problems? Batgirl no more, Cassandra Cain has moved to Hong Kong and renamed herself the Black Bat. But with her friends and adopted family half a world away, who can she turn to when she discovers that her urges and anxieties have come along for the ride? Someone is about to walk back into her life...





	Way of the Heavenly Fist - Part 4: Tainted Red

**Author's Note:**

> (Well, here we are, at the start of a whole new trilogy. Yep, this is gonna be another three-parter. Which is why this one is probably a bit short on the "good" stuff, since it's more of a scene-setter. It's also a fair bit darker and more violent than the last ones, so be warned, but I promise it'll all turn out alright in the end. Hope you enjoy it, and please leave a comment if you do!)

            Black Glove Long hadn’t made Red Pole by being a fearful man. Cautious, yes. Prudent and discreet, too. But fear was widely considered unbecoming of a Triad underboss. That night, however, maintaining face was a priority that had given way rather aggressively to the more immediate concern of staying alive. He was running away, faster than he ever had, down well-trodden alleyways that were agonizingly empty, bereft of even a single hobo. He could barely hear a sound over his own heart trying to beat itself to death, and it seemed to Long that the entire population of Hong Kong had been reduced to just himself and his pursuer.

            That notion was challenged when he turned a corner just in time to see a dark mass descend from the rooftops, like a huge blot of ink dropping from above. It then coalesced into the figure of a woman in a black and yellow outfit, blocking his escape. Long gave a yell and ran even faster towards her, making the woman raise her fists and dig her heels into the ground. But before she could actually use either of those, Long tripped, fell to his knees and scrambled towards her with a desperate look in his face.

            “<I-It’s you! The Black Bat!” he yelled, took a breath and continued, “It’s you, oh thank Heaven it’s you! Please, you have to help me! Please!>”

            Cassandra had become a fast learner of Cantonese since arriving in town a year ago, but Long was a much faster talker, and other than a few key words she found it difficult to keep up. Still, the gist of it was clear: the Triad Red Pole was terrified out of his bald, tattooed head.

            “Please”, Long bawled out, now in English, “take me to the police, take me to jail, I’ll tell everything! Just get me out of here! She’s going to kill me!”

            Long hadn’t exactly been in Cassandra’s crosshairs. She knew of him, naturally, as she knew about all the major and mid-level players in the main Triads. And she had a wealth of information regarding his money laundering and drug trafficking operations. But she wasn’t expecting to go after him any time soon. To have him deliver himself like this looked like a blessing, but Cassandra knew it for the bad sign it was.

            “Are you listening to me?! I said take me to the police, take me to…” Long whined on, but was suddenly interrupted by footsteps coming from around the bend. They were light, barely audible, and oddly slow, but somehow both Long and Cassandra were able to hear them perfectly. “Oh no. She’s here.”

            Crawling on all fours, Long scurried behind Cassandra like a rat and froze in place, his finger pointing at the alley’s corner. Cassandra tried to keep him in his sights, but the footsteps were getting closer, and as she tried to imagine what could’ve plunged a Red Pole into such spiraling despair, one name in particular made her heart beat just a little faster.

            She’d missed her when she first arrived in the city. Her business, whatever it had been, was already over and done with by then, only a dozen freshly-dug graves and several traumatized eye witnesses left in her wake. But she had already moved on, and as the days turned into months, Cassandra had almost given out hope of meeting her again any time soon. So despite the circumstances, a bolt of excitement ran down her back when she saw Lady Shiva emerge from around the corner.

            There was an almost solemn moment of silence as the two women locked eyes. Wrapped in her own identity, Cassandra was worried her mother might not recognize her, but almost immediately chastised herself for thinking it. This was Lady Shiva. This was her mother. She probably could’ve recognized her inside a cardboard box. Still, if she did, Shiva gave no outward signs of knowing Hong Kong’s newest vigilante. The most she gave her was a small pause before continuing on her way, walking towards Cassandra and Long.

            “Please don’t let her please she’ll kill me I swear I’ll give myself up please don’t do it!” Long continued to rave with increasing urgency as Shiva got closer. Eventually she stopped, and the world seemed to stop with her, holding its breath.

            “He’s coming with me,” Black Bat shot first. Behind her, Long nodded madly, fear having finally swallowed all his words.

            Shiva didn’t answer at first. She simply looked up and down, from Long’s shrinking form to the Black Bat standing with her arms at the ready, her stance low and menacing. She seemed to be taking stock of the situation, judging its worth. Cassandra tried to focus on Shiva’s gaze, to stand her ground, but out the corner of her eye she caught a tiny spot of red that made her vision drift to her mother’s blood-soaked knuckles. Under her domino mask, Cassandra’s eyes widened with what she told herself was surprise, maybe even a bit of fear. It was better than accepting how much the sight of red dripping from those black gloves really excited her.

            “I see,” Shiva said, pulling Cassandra out of her spell, and turned to Long as if she weren’t there: “Fortune has smiled on you today, Black Glove Long. Leave now, turn yourself in to the police, and take whatever sentence they give you. But if tomorrow I learn you have failed to do so, I will hunt you down like the dog you are and make what I did to Mad Eyes Ho and Jackie Wu look positively merciful.”

            It was the first time Cassandra had heard her mother speak Cantonese. It was a threat, of that much she was certain, but the meanings got lost in the silky tone of her voice. To her ears, she sounded sweeter than ever, more comfortable and familiar, but there was a razor sharpness just underneath every word that seemed designed to keep everyone on edge. It certainly worked, as even when Long exploded in gratefulness and swiftly stole away from the scene, he still looked every bit as scared as when Cassandra had first seen him.

            They saw him off, disappearing into the distance, and then they were alone. Cassandra turned to look at her mother and found she had closed the gap between them in silence, and was now standing dangerously close to her. She felt a tug of instinct telling her to back away, or at least to keep her guard up, but it was like shouting inside a tornado. All of her lingering emotions were finally coming home to roost. At that distance, Cassandra reckoned, she’d have no time to react if her mother decided to strike. All it’d take would be one blow, one punch, and then it’d be just like before. She’d only been back in her life for less than five minutes, and already Shiva had her at her mercy again. Just one blow.

            “Daughter,” Shiva said instead, with a tender smile on her face, “have you had dinner yet?”

* * *

 

            It’d all started that night at the waterfront. Technically, it’d started about a month earlier, during that sparring match with Stephanie, who’d doubled her training efforts after learning she was to take on the mantle of Batgirl. Despite her reignited passion, things were going as usual: Steph barely able to hold her ground, Cassandra slowing down enough to at least let her see where the strikes were coming from. But that night, Cassandra didn’t just slow down. She stopped. She didn’t plan it. She didn’t even think about it. She just relaxed her muscles, dropped her guard and stopped. Before she could realize what she’d just done, she’d already taken a punch square across her jaw.

            Steph, who was already feeling guilty enough over being trained by the same friend whose identity she was about to adopt, immediately dissolved into apologies, her puppy eyes growing four sizes as she made a dozen different excuses. Cassandra just smiled and tried to pass it off as a lesson about noticing when an enemy made a mistake or grew overconfident, and seizing the advantage. That first punch, she explained, was just to take away her opponent’s balance, shake the foundations. The second should demolish them. Steph listened and nodded, and Cassandra even managed to convince herself that yes, teaching her friend a lesson was exactly what she intended to do. And the nagging disappointment she felt at Steph’s unwillingness to continue after that first punch was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

            So no, it hadn’t really started at the waterfront, but that was when she got her wake up call. In the form of a huge mutated killer whale monster. It’d been almost half a year since that night at the penthouse. She and Batwoman were on the trail of a group of thieves who’d managed to steal a sensitive piece of S.T.A.R. Labs equipment. The trail led to a warehouse near the docks where they intended to sell it to Intergang. Kate and Cassandra broke up the meeting easily enough, knocking more than half of the criminals out in the opening exchange and forcing the few that remained conscious out of the warehouse, where they gave chase. But as they engaged in a last stand gunfight across the empty docks, neither side counted on a new player joining the battleground until she jumped out of the waters and tried to eat Kate’s head.

            As the thieves and gangsters scattered, leaving their prize behind, Cassandra quite literally jumped to her team-mate’s help, kicking Orca away from Batwoman. Forgetting herself, she ordered Kate to secure the device as she kept the human-whale hybrid busy. Which was easier said than done, since the process that had transformed her from a crippled doctor to a monstrous criminal had given her awesome strength and surprising speed. And there was another problem: with her biology almost completely altered, Cassandra found it hard to keep up with Orca’s unsubtle but bizarre body language, let alone locate any pressure points in her mutated body.

            Despite her handicaps, Cassandra didn’t find it that hard to keep Orca at bay. The hybrid’s strikes, while devastating, were still clumsy. And even if Cassandra couldn’t read her as easily, Orca was hardly a very creative fighter. She held so many advantages in this fight but was still simply unable to land a single punch on Cassandra. Not one. And one was all she really needed. One punch from Orca, Cassandra reckoned, would either badly stagger her or knock her out immediately. Or perhaps even worse. Only one punch. Just one. One.

            This time, Cassandra realized exactly what she had done, half a second before Orca’s punch tagged her. It was just enough time for her to try rolling with it, which was the only thing that kept her head from being punched clean off her body, but the blow’s remaining force still took Cassandra to the edge of unconsciousness. One moment she was standing there like a dummy, the next she was on her back, vision blurry and darkening, feeling nothing but the ground rumbling as Orca stalked her. She felt a pair of powerful hands grabbing her by her limp legs and the world came unglued around her as she was thrown like a potato sack against a container wall. The impact shook her awake just in time to dodge Orca’s mad charge, which dented and flipped the heavy container like a wrecking ball.

            As she struggled to her feet, Cassandra shuddered at the sight of Orca emerging from the up-ended container. She turned around and tried to run, her survival instincts having finally pushed past her inexplicable desires. But as the beast woman jumped out from the wreckage and pounced at her, Cassandra realized her awakening to the severity of the situation had been entirely too little, too late and too slow. Crashing down on her, Orca caught Cassandra’s head with one massive grey hand and smashed her face-first into the ground, then grabbed her by the back of her neck and both of her thighs. She lifted her high above her misshapen head, gave a triumphant roar, and threw the stunned girl into the leg of an old crane.

            Slamming sideways onto the crane’s leg, Casandra cried out in pain as her back was horribly bent against the cold, unyielding steel. Her vision went black for a moment, and when it came back, she was on the ground, coughing inside her mask and looking at three Orcas striding towards her, sporting three massive mouths lined with rows of the sharpest teeth she could imagine, teeth that glittered with a cruel, ugly light. Cassandra fought to get up, to escape, but her back felt like it was caught in a vice. Her armored suit had kept her spine just shy of getting broken and not much else. Even breathing had turned into an exercise in self-flagellation. And that was what this was all about, wasn’t it? Being numb, helpless, so terribly close to certain, brutal death… Wasn’t this what she wanted? What she sought?

            The stench of Orca’s breath, dank with raw flesh and half-digested algae, pulled Cassandra back into more immediate concerns, but with her body failing to respond to the commands screamed by her brain, all she could do was go limp and pray for the best as the monster woman grabbed her by one boneless leg and tossed her around like a ragdoll. She was slammed again into the crane, her brain rattling inside her skull as her head bounced off the steel. Once again, her armored helmet kept her cranium from cracking, but at that speed and with that strength, a concussion was nothing short of inevitable. As the world went black around her once more, perhaps for good, Cassandra realized that no, this wasn’t what she wanted. There was no pleasure to be found here, no comfort, no real joy. She’d lured herself here looking for a pain that her team-mates couldn’t give her, and found out too late that neither could her enemies. This was nothing more than a pathetic way to die for which she had no-one to blame but herself.

            Cassandra could no longer tell if her eyes were closed or not. Darkness covered her like a body bag, and the only thing keeping her tethered to the conscious world was the aching pain that split her head and the nauseating smell of Orca’s mouth, which was only getting closer. She didn’t need to see it happening. She barely even had to imagine it. At any moment now, her head would be hovering inside Orca’s mouth, if it wasn’t already, and without notice, those savage jaws would close in on her. Perhaps they’d cut her neck clean off, leaving her whole head inside the monster’s massive mouth to be sucked clean like a piece of candy. Perhaps they’d close somewhere around her face first, or her forehead, and Cassandra would feel a few more seconds of excruciating agony as her bruised skull was cracked without mercy. It didn’t really matter. Nothing mattered any more. But even as she surrendered herself to her fate, Cassandra couldn’t help wondering what her mother would think of this death. And deep down, she wished she could’ve seen her at least one more time.

             It was then that the universe seemingly decided she had learned her lesson. Kate finally got the S.T.A.R. device working and hit Orca with a beam of deep blue light that penetrated even through the dark haze that had fallen over Cassandra’s eyes. The next thing she knew, Cassandra was back on the ground, and so was Orca. Or rather, the now very human and very paralyzed doctor in Marine Biology that just a few seconds ago was Orca. During their debriefing, Barbara tried explaining what had happened. Lots of long words were used, few of which really stayed with Cassandra. She had her own problem to worry about, especially now she could see it for what it was: a problem. A big one.

            Her team-mates’ understanding only seemed to make it worse. A fluke, a momentary distraction, it happens to the best of us, it’s not every day you fight a giant humanoid killer whale, they all sounded like condescending platitudes to Cassandra. Even Kate’s stiff reprimands came off as nothing more than empty words from people who just couldn’t see what was happening to her. Alone with her thoughts, she’d stay in bed waiting for her bones to mend and endlessly replaying the fight in her mind. Only that wasn’t entirely true. She wasn’t trying to find where she had gone wrong, or what she could’ve done better. She knew that. She’d known that the moment Orca’s fist tagged her. It was the other part of the fight that she just couldn’t get away from.

            Night after night, lying half-awake, Cassandra tossed and turned in her bed in tune with her memories of being hurled around like a toy. Her breathing grew heavy and labored as she recalled the pangs of pain exploding from her back and head as she was slammed into the cold steel. That impotence, that closeness to death, it was a thrill she’d been looking for ever since Shiva had left. It’d been far more brutish and certainly not as safe, but still similar enough to make her toes curl and her skin crawl and her legs rub closer together every time she recalled it. One particularly lonely night, when the rest of the family was out patrolling, she started pleasuring herself to that memory, to the gnawing terror of being devoured alive, to the twisted exhilaration of being unable to do anything about it…

            Which was how Barbara found her, when she was so close to her climax that her moans were loud enough to make her guardian fear for her health. She rolled into the medical room terrified of Cassandra reliving what was no doubt a traumatic experience. And on that, she was right. She just didn’t count on Cassandra doing so with three fingers inside her. The two shared one small, deathly awkward look before Barbara rolled out, faster than if she had legs, and slammed the door behind her. She didn’t leave, however, and insisted on staying a while longer and stammering a bunch of words about how sorry she was and that she knew Cassandra wasn’t a small girl anymore and if that helped with her recovery then that was fine. And all that did was make Cassandra wish she’d actually died that night.

            They didn’t talk much after that. Even if Barbara hadn’t caught her, Cassandra just wasn’t in the mood to exchange more words than the absolutely necessary. Barbara, Stephanie, Kate, Bruce, Alfred and the rest, they already had enough on their plate worrying about her physical well-being. Burdening them with psychological issues would only make things worse. Especially since she wasn’t sure they’d understand it even if she did explain herself. And she didn’t know who to resent for that. Was it her fault for being such a mess? Theirs, for being so narrow-minded and oblivious? Or her mother, for leaving her with these unfulfilled desires?

            Whatever the cause, Cassandra felt numb to the world. The loss of her identity to Steph, which at any other time would’ve been a gut punch, was now only a minor concern that belonged in a world that seemed more and more distant with every new day. So when Bruce briefed them on the need of establishing a vigilante presence in Hong Kong, it felt only natural to make that divide as real as it felt in her mind…

* * *

 

            Finishing her story, Cassandra began to feel that old wave of shame bearing down on her. She’d been so wrapped up in herself, it was now hard to admit having such deep inner turmoil triggered by a fight with a human whale. The rest wasn’t particularly easy to express either. But Shiva remained unflappable, as always, as she remembered her, and she simply set her plate down and smirked.

            “It is a strange world,” she said, “and far more interesting for it. And while I could regale you with the story of my encounter with a man who was a Praying Mantis, I know such mutations are not what troubles you, Cassandra.”

            She was right, of course, and while Cassandra wouldn’t have minded hearing more about this Mantis fellow, she silently agreed that she had more important matters to work out. And finally, for the first time in over a year, someone to help her.

            “Since you left, I’ve been trying,” Cassandra started, and right away knew she’d stumbled off the gate. “That’s… the wrong word, isn’t it?”

            “Indeed.”

            “I’ve been… following myself. Thinking less and doing more. But after that fight I feel like something’s gone wrong. Like I took a turn I shouldn’t have. Why…” Cassandra stopped to take a darting look around the restaurant. The dinner rush had come and gone, and now they were all alone, save for an aging waitress and two patrons on the other side of the hall. When she returned, Shiva seemed amused by her sudden self-consciousness, which only made it stronger. But she’d come this far, and so she swallowed her shame and finally asked: “Why would an unbeatable fighter wish to be beaten?”

            “Many reasons,” her mother answered, barely stopping to think about it. “As many as there are fighters. Boredom. Frustration. Hope.”

            “But it’s different for me.”

            “As it is for all.”

            “What I mean is I don’t want to lose a fight, I want… I want more,” Cassandra said, the words clogging up her throat, stepping over each other to come out first. She’d waited too long to say them, and now they seemed woefully insufficient. “But my friends would worry, and my enemies would kill me, and a stranger wouldn’t do it. I have nobody to turn to. Do you understand?”

            Shiva put her hand on her chin and finally gave her daughter’s words some actual thought. It worried Cassandra immensely. As the seconds ticked away and time seemed to stretch painfully over them, Cassandra grit her teeth and stared nervously at her mother. What if she didn’t understand her? What if it was too late, if she was too far gone, if there was nothing that even Lady Shiva could do? Despair hung over her head like a sword until Shiva’s smile returned to her face.

            “This requires further study,” she stated, then grabbed a napkin and signaled the waitress. They shared a couple of words in Cantonese and the elder woman handed Shiva a pen. She scribbled something on the soft paper and handed it over to Cassandra, then said “Finish your meal, clean yourself, and then come find me at this address. We will have words there.”

            Cassandra took the napkin and looked at it, then back at her mother. “Just… words?” she grinned.

            And Shiva shot one right back at her.

* * *

 

            The stairs that led down to the kwon were tucked away between a massage parlor and a pawn shop. Cassandra didn’t expect much as she walked down and opened the door, but the nonexistent facade and faded sign belied its lavish interior like a wooden chest hiding a stash of ancient golden coins. It was such a far cry from the musty old gym that it might as well have been in a different planet altogether. Bright reds assaulted Cassandra at every turn. Hand-painted banners with dragons and tigers locked in battle hung from the ceiling. Several racks filled to the brim with all manner of swords and weapons adorned the walls. It was the kind of place, Cassandra suspected, that movie studios paid handsomely to shoot in. And according to the row of framed pictures with smiling bald men and sharply-dressed directors that hung from the entrance hall wall, she was right.

            From a side door, Shiva emerged, the very image of pragmatism. No flashy clothes, no bright silk dresses, just white pants and a pitch black tank top. Her hands were also disappointingly naked. While slightly faded, the memory of her mother’s leather-clad fists punishing her flesh had kept Cassandra awake for many a night. Compared to that, the Lady Shiva that stood before her seemed too ordinary. Mundane, almost. But Cassandra shook that thought off her head and started to nervously undo her overcoat’s belt.

            “Before we start,” Shiva interrupted her, “I will give you an instruction. You will follow it to the letter. You will carry it out to the best of your abilities. Fail to do so, and I will leave. You will never see me again in your life. Is that understood?”

            Cassandra’s answer wrapped itself into a knot inside her throat and refused to come out. There was a severity in her mother’s words that she’d scarcely heard before, an ironclad resolution that cut through any possible sarcasm or double-meanings. All feelings of doubt in her mind were silenced by the dreaded certainty that Shiva meant every single word she’d just said.

            “Is that understood?”

            She couldn’t even bring herself to answer. Instead, Cassandra just nodded, untied her coat and let it slide off her trembling body. It was a moment she’d fantasized about countless times, being naked in front of her mother once more, vulnerable and humiliated, but now that it was finally happening, she found no comfort in it. She was too busy dealing with the fear she’d struck in her without even moving a finger.

            “Very well,” she said, and held out her hand in a commanding gesture, ordering Cassandra to come forth. She obeyed and stepped meekly onto the training mats. “Now, strike me.”

            Cassandra blinked once, then twice, then noticed her mother’s gaze suddenly growing cold and terrible. Spurred into action by that glare, she raised her hands and balled them into fists like it was the first time she’d ever done it. She held them there, her eyes still fixed on Shiva’s, hoping to see a change in her expression. But there was none to be found. Her mother only seemed to become colder with every second, the freezing gulf between them widening rapidly. Panicking, Cassandra finally threw a punch: a clumsy, paltry excuse for a punch that flew through the air like a misfired arrow. Predictably, it hit nothing at all.

            “I thought you had understood, Cassandra,” her mother chastised her, having dodged the blow with almost negative effort.

            Following her voice, Cassandra tried again, swinging wildly at Shiva. Again she dodged it, as if she’d never been there in the first place. The knot in Cassandra’s throat tightened as she tried again, and again, and again, the result always the same. It wasn’t that long ago that Cassandra had forged her reputation first by beating and then by killing Lady Shiva. Now, she couldn’t even graze her. Frustration and a deep, mournful sadness swelled up in her heart, until she found herself caught between wanting to scream and wanting to cry.

            She chose screaming. Holding her breath for a second, Cassandra let out a loud howl that rammed right through the knot and exploded from her mouth. It wasn’t a kiai, or at least she hadn’t intended it to be, but the primal scream was timed perfectly with the rest of her body as she put everything she had behind one more blow. Taking energy from the ground, twisting her waist and extending her arm, Cassandra’s fist flew straight and true. And even though Shiva dodged it, from the corner of her eye, Cassandra saw her mother’s eyebrows raise just a little. Just enough.

            Urged onwards by the minuscule gesture, Cassandra redoubled her attack, but it was in vain. Not only was she slower than before but her energy seemed to be ebbing away from her sweating body at an alarming pace with every new attempt. Soon there was nothing left behind her fists but anger. Anger at herself, for being so weak. Anger at her mother, for making her humiliate herself. Anger at life, the world, the universe. Then it became just anger. And then it became nothing.

            With what little she had left, lingering remains of nameless emotions, Cassandra threw one last desperate punch that whiffed pitifully past Shiva, and then found herself in a losing battle to keep her balance. Clearly deciding that enough was enough, Shiva gave her daughter’s shins a sharp, dry rap with her foot, and Cassandra fell face first into the sweat-covered mats with a thud. She stayed there, burying her head in the foam to hide the tears that had started to roll from her eyes, and tried to remember a time she’d felt more miserable than now. At this, she also failed.

            Finally lifting her head just a little, Cassandra saw her mother striding calmly to one of the weapon racks. She wondered if she’d finally decided to do it, to end her daughter’s misery. After all, what use was her if she couldn’t fight? If she didn’t kill her now, then Cassandra would surely die tomorrow, leaving herself open for some new monstrous villain, or maybe just a lucky thug’s switchblade. At least like this, she reckoned, her life would be taken by the same woman who’d given it to her. There was a circular quality to it that she could appreciate, even in the throes of despair.

            A dull thump woke Cassandra up as the tip of what seemed like a walking stick slammed down inches away from her tear-stained face. Cranking her head up, she confirmed it was indeed a wooden walking stick, thin and worn but well-maintained. And at the top of it, holding it down with both palms joined together, was Lady Shiva, looking down on her fallen daughter with an empty expression.

            “I see now there is work to be done. We start tonight. Get up.”

            With tired hands, Cassandra wiped away her tears and started the long, arduous climb back up. She didn’t reach out for her mother’s support, not out of pride but resignation. After all, Shiva probably would’ve tripped her again. Instead, she focused on standing on her two feet again, and when she eventually got there, Cassandra found she wasn’t nearly as tired as she felt.

            “Now, again. Strike me,” Shiva ordered.

            Cassandra obeyed. Slightly more focused, more concerned with not exhausting herself, she threw a quick jab towards her mother. For her effort, she was rewarded with a sharp sound that rattled her ears and an even sharper sting of pain across the back of her hand as Shiva’s stick struck her fist. Cassandra yelped as the skin on her hand immediately turned bright red and pain climbed up her arm like a spider. It subsided a second later, but the hurt spot continued to throb, sharp and sore.

            Turning towards her mother, Cassandra didn’t wait for her command before continuing her attack. This time, she bent and then stiffened her left arm to throw a short circular elbow aimed at Shiva’s neck. Shiva didn’t even try to dodge it. Instead, she simply snuck a hit inside Cassandra’s slacking guard, her stick slapping her daughter’s forearm and making her miss completely. There was that pain again, throbbing sharply like needles piercing her skin. Her fist and now her forearm seemed to vibrate to some evil, forbidden frequency conjured by the stick. And the pain it summoned didn’t go away, no matter what she did.

            What Cassandra did was press on. With palms, fists, elbows, shoulders, knees, shins and feet, she brought to bear every single part of her body that could be used as a weapon, flinging them at her mother with a cold rage that was swiftly heated up by the ruthless sting of Shiva’s stick. Wherever it struck, it left another red patch in Cassandra’s skin, another aching spot of concentrated pain that made her cry out. Twice she stumbled as the staff came bearing down on her legs, making her knees bend and crash together, exacerbating the pain. Soon she was unable to even close her hands or raise her legs. There didn’t seem to be a single unharmed spot anywhere on her flailing limbs, no square inch where her muscles could move without launching pangs of agony across her whole body. And maybe it was so, since for her next strike, Shiva suddenly switched targets.

            “Guuuhh!” Cassandra gurgled as the tip of Shiva’s stick was rammed into her solar plexus. The pain was so crisp and so sharp that Cassandra could’ve sworn a hidden dagger had emerged from the tip, but nothing could’ve been further from the truth. She followed the wooden tool as it was pulled back, noticing it didn’t even have a plastic tip, and saw it twirl around in Shiva’s hand and draw a half circle in the air before she sent it crashing down onto her daughter’s side.

            “Yahhh!” she screamed as her abdominal oblique muscles were whipped, first from the right and then from the left, the stick drawing a horizontal eight through Cassandra’s trembling body and the humid air around it. Doubling over from the sudden pain, Shiva vanished from Cassandra’s swimming sight, and the only evidence of her doubtlessly flawless form was the swift reappearance of her stick as it launched itself once again like an arrow pointed directly at her stomach.

            This time she made no sound. The only thing that left her mouth was a small gust of wind she’d managed to hoard, which was pushed out of her lungs as she was impaled on the staff. Staggering forward on legs of jelly, Cassandra fell on something strong and warm, curved perfectly as if waiting to receive her. It was her mother’s back, as that last thrust of the stick had been delivered without even looking at her.

            The disrespect didn’t bother Cassandra. She was too busy being in abject pain all across her punished frame. Groaning, she slid off Shiva’s body, the side of her drooling mouth brushing against the ridges of her mother’s back muscles as if she were being repelled by such a clearly superior physique. Cassandra’s heart, similarly resigned to a snail-like beat, perked a little as her falling curve approached her mother’s ample hips, but with a clean twist of her waist Shiva pushed her off, and the next second she was back on the ground, face down, none the wiser but certainly in a lot more pain.

            It didn’t hurt a lot, this aching blanket that covered Cassandra’s skin, but it hurt all over. It hurt everywhere she could think of. Even the places that hadn’t been struck by the stick throbbed relentlessly as in solidarity with her battered limbs and crushed midsection. She was shaking now, her nerves launching bolt after bolt of sheer hurting with every beat of her heart, until it became a storm of agony. So deep and reaching was the pain that Cassandra didn’t even notice how much the beating had aroused her. There was simply no room for pleasure left in her being. All she was was pain.

            Something stabbed Cassandra in the small of her back, making her groan and whimper. At first she assumed it was the stick, exploring the cold and sweating yet still relatively virgin territory of her backside, but as it twisted and turned against her pelvis, she recognized its deep, imposing motions. It was her mother’s foot, trampling nonchalantly over her beaten flesh. And sad and pitiable as it was, Cassandra found herself feeling grateful that her mother was choosing to hurt her with her own body once more.

            “Is this what you wanted, then?” Shiva asked, “To be defeated? Conquered? To become a victim?”

            Cassandra knew the answer. So did Shiva. Perhaps, even better than Cassandra herself.

            “Contented in your misery. Finding pleasure in anguish. A lump of quivering meat to be bruised and abused by anyone with two fists. Why would the unbeatable fighter wish to be beaten? Maybe because she no longer wanted to be that. Maybe she had been given a way to turn into something else, into its polar opposite, and in that opposite she finally found the peace she had sought for so long.”

            Cassandra remained silent. Doubt gnawed at her mind, fed well by her mother’s words as they seemed to pierce her back like acupuncture needles.

            “But nobody could give you that. Your friends want you sane, fighting fit and ready for anything. Your foes merely want you dead. Neither option is acceptable, but no other is available. And so you ran, seeking the aide of the one who had shown you this path in the first place.”

            Shiva’s heel dug deeper into Cassandra’s back, making her wince. Her hips raised ever so slightly and her back arched just a smidge. Somewhere, buried inside the pervading pain, a spark of lust crackled back to life.

            “Listen to me, daughter,” she heard her mother say, her voice drawing closer and colder, “and listen well.”

            Under her mother’s foot, Cassandra stirred. Shiva accepted the sign and bent down closer to the defeated girl’s ear, until she could see it trembling at her breath, and whispered straight into her mind:

            “I want nothing from you. You are nothing to me.”

            Before Cassandra could begin to take in her mother’s sentence, Shiva brought her stick down one last time, striking with clinical precision against a very particular nerve cluster. One that Cassandra had desperately tried to trigger on her own, to no avail, more times than she wanted to admit.

            The effect was not as immediate as she remembered it, and for a moment she feared that maybe her body had somehow grown immune to the Heavenly Fist. But as Shiva removed her foot from her daughter’s back, a soothing wave of warm pleasure rippled from the pressure point like waves in a pond, washing through the aching bruises littered across Cassandra’s body and slowly reversing the steady beat of dull pain. Trembling with delight, Cassandra gave out long moans and squirmed in place, as if teased by an invisible force. Her tongue slid out of her mouth and her nipples went stiff enough to make her wish Shiva had hit her across the chest with that stick of her, if only to taste what that would feel like.

            Unfortunately, when she managed to crank her head up just enough, Cassandra saw Shiva place the walking stick back in the weapons rack. She tried in vain to complain, but her words had gotten away from her again and the only sound she made was another deep moan as she watched her mother turn around and walk back to her. Her heart now pounding like a jackhammer, Cassandra flipped heavily onto her back, like a sunflower seeking the light, and offered herself to Lady Shiva just like she’d dreamed of doing for so long.

            But Shiva did nothing of what she’d done to Cassandra in the past or in dreams. Instead, she simply stood over her, her arms crossed and her stare cold and menacing. Her last words echoed in her daughter’s pounding ears, and a palpable sense of dread fell over Cassandra. Desperate to communicate her desire to her mother, she began to run her tired hands across her bruised body, contouring her perked-up breasts, brushing her tenderized abs, and squealing with delight when she finally reached her mons and fiddled dangerously close to her wet clitoris. But Shiva remained unfazed, a warrior statue silently judging Cassandra from above.

            Urged on by a burning desire to bury her shame and fear under the pleasure she’d missed for so long, Cassandra began to masturbate herself, her fingers penetrating deep into her with sloppy, clumsy abandon. Powerful spasms shook her at every movement, the Heavenly Fist and her bruised nerve centers conspiring to turn her whole body into one massive erogenous zone. Through the unthinkable, indescribable haze of bliss that fell upon her, Cassandra tried to lock eyes with her mother, but her back arched further and further as she drew closer to her peak, until all she could see were Shiva’s feet.

            In her lust-crazed state, even the mere thought of her mother stepping on her was enough to drive Cassandra over the edge. Bucking her hips wildly and with both hands between her legs, one rubbing her clit and the other knuckles deep inside her, Cassandra rode a wild orgasm that seemed to blow away the days, the months, the entire lonesome year and a half she’d spent without Shiva in her life. When it finally stopped, Cassandra was left a wet, panting mess on the mat, adrift in the waves of a sea of sexual joy that she’d longed to drown in for nights on end.

            But something had changed. Something was different this time. As the afterglow receded, not disappearing but just fading into a sweet tingle across her body, Cassandra tried to move, to roll back on her belly and pull herself up. But she couldn’t even get past step one. She didn’t feel heavy, or tired, but instead she felt like nothing. Like her mind or her spirit had taken their hands off the steering wheel and refused to put them back. It wasn’t even an out of body experience. She knew perhaps too well how those felt like.  It was closer, much closer to death, yet unlike any death she had experienced before. They’d all been sudden, violent deaths, happening in the span of a second. Twisted as it may sound, she’d never gotten the chance to really relish them, to stop and feel the life bleeding away from her.

            This was what Cassandra imagined that must’ve felt like. Her thoughts, her senses, everything that was hers was fading away, dissipating into the air. Slowly, inexorably, Cassandra lost everything she was and everything she would be. Even the orgasmic bliss that still reverberated inside her was diminishing, and she knew that once the effects of the Heavenly Fist wore out, it would be gone forever. Just like her. She would be nothing at all. And with solemn comfort, she figured it’d be a welcome change from this life of disturbed minds and painful pleasures.

            Through it all, Shiva stayed with her. The seconds ticked away, emptying away the last vestiges of Cassandra’s conscious mind until it had nothing to think about. Her senses went silent and darkness beckoned her from all sides, but with her mother at her side, the loneliness that had haunted her was nowhere to be seen. Bathing in the nearness of her, Cassandra Cain ceased to be and embraced the void, melting into its welcoming nothing as naturally as ice turns to water under the summer sun.

            “I want nothing from you,” her mother’s voice echoed in the dark. “You are nothing to me.” And there, in that absolute emptiness that had swallowed and erased her being, Cassandra understood with a clarity reserved only for the dead.

* * *

 

            She awoke to the sound of falling waters. She wasn’t really unconscious, or asleep, but she’d dived so deep inside herself that she must’ve looked comatose. A small cascade drizzled on her chest as her drowsy eyes were gently snapped back into focus. Cassandra was in a small cubicle of white ceramic tiles. Above her, a metallic mouth spewed an endless silver stream of water onto her. And behind her, keeping her upright, she felt the comforting warmth of two long, skillful hands gently caressing her scarred body.

            “Mother?” she whispered. “I think… I understand now.”

            “Do you now? Then tell me,” Shiva answered, as her hands covered Cassandra’s skin with a softly-scented soap.

            “I am not an invincible fighter, or a superhero, or a victim. I am nothing.”

            “So am I. So is everyone. You are not a fighter any more than I am a killer. We may become these things along our way, but they are not the way. To define yourself in such narrow terms leads only to sorrow. These things that others want for you, they are not you. Like the void, you are nothing, and you are everything.”

            “But how can I do it? How can I…” she asked, but was interrupted by her mother’s hands caressing her breasts, making her gasp and tremble.

            “I will show you one way. Tomorrow. For now, rest, my daughter. Let go.”

            A pair of slender fingers slid inside of Cassandra before she could say one more word, and she leaned closer to her mother. Over them, the water fell on their naked bodies, sweet and purifying, as they became one.


End file.
